garbled

adjective

gar·​bled ˈgär-bəld 

: made unclear or confusing : distorted or mixed up

a garbled message

garbled speech

… scientific cranks—those folks who concoct garbled and grandiose pseudo-scientific theories …

—Robert W. Wilson

A garbled group of syllables came over the speaker.

—Tom Clancy

But so much happened afterward to him that his five-day drive from Cracow to Warsaw soon became a garbled fading memory.

—Herman Wouk

Since the algorithm relies on the absolute accuracy of everything it has read to build the file, garbled information could lead to any number of mistakes.

—Paul C. Schuytema

Examples of garbled in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In fact, the core messages can get garbled if the media can’t keep up with the intended meaning. —Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 27 Oct. 2025

Signing into the service — a process accompanied by a noisy, garbled series of computerized tones that sounded like a drowning robot — became a rite of passage. —Rob Wile, NBC news, 30 Sep. 2025

Those pages are a garbled mess, and Thomas spends much of them starting from the assumption that his conclusions are true. —Ian Millhiser, Vox, 27 June 2025

But some critics have noted his erratic behavior, such as his Nazi-like gesture at a rally, garbled answers during interviews, and frequent insults of top Trump officials. —Nik Popli, Time, 30 May 2025

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1757, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for garbled

• marbled